


the choices we make.

by ProHeroKali



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Divine Pulse Angst (Fire Emblem), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Implied Relationships, M/M, Male My Unit | Byleth, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23867272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProHeroKali/pseuds/ProHeroKali
Summary: It’s in this moment that Byleth realizes: He doesn't want to fight anymore.As usual, far, far too late.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	the choices we make.

_Dimitri._

He stands with his lance at the ready, that wild, feral look in his eyes as he braces himself for this final fight. Byleth is closest to him, and he can't say it's not on purpose. El had left positioning up to him, of course, and what other reason would there be for him to have woven his way through the battlefield so effortlessly alone, the rest of the Black Eagles still engaged with the enemy behind. He holds his sword at the ready, but there's less force behind it. Less intent, more just a safety precaution.

Byleth looks at Dimitri, so different from the boy he remembers walking the monastery grounds with, requesting his company for a cup of tea, giving tips and training and advice despite not being of his class, because something about Dimitri had always been more special than the others - Byleth just hadn't realized it soon enough.

That was like him, though, never one to be fully aware of himself until it was far, far too late. With the sound of his friends fighting and the thunderous pounding of the rain overhead and Dimitri barking orders with a vicious hate that Byleth could never have fathomed the once seemingly gentle boy capable of, his still heart cracks.

It’s in this moment that Byleth realizes: He doesn't want to fight anymore.

As usual, far, fartoo late.

“Dimitri,” he calls, his voice nearly swallowed by an ominous crack of thunder. It’s a miracle he’s able to say anything at all through the knot thickening in the back of his throat.

Dimitri hears him regardless, swinging toward him, lance prepared to strike - and he freezes, and for a moment the look in his eyes is less wild, less hateful, more just full of stunned disbelief. Like Byleth is a ghost, a reaper come to bring him his final judgement. Byleth supposes it’s not that far from reality.

He lowers his sword just enough to show his own hesitance, but keeps his guard up. Were it not for his Eagles keeping the rest of Dimitri’s army at bay he surely would have been attacked by now, and the tide of the battle can change at any moment.

But he knows Dimitri, or he knew Dimitri, or he thought he knew Dimitri, and the deepening pit in his stomach still thinks that maybe the mad king can be reasoned with. Maybe this doesn’t have to end how he knows it inevitably will.

Dimitri does not ease his stance. If anything, his grip on his lance tightens, his body constricts, a cold rage re-enters his gaze as his brow furrows. He doesn’t move, however, doesn’t lunge, doesn’t attack, merely observes Byleth like a wary, water-logged cat. Waiting for him to speak again.

Words don’t come. The battle is raging around them and a flurry of unfamiliar emotions are overloading Byleth’s whole state and the rain is coming down too hard and too loud and all he wants is for everything to stop. The fighting, the battle, the war, these feelings that are flooding him and doing more to drown him than the downpour ever could - all of it, he just wants it to end.

Instead, Dimitri speaks.

"Don't… Don't look at me like... that."

The strained fury in his voice hits Byleth's chest like an arrow. But looking at Dimitri, he sees the conflict in his expression, anguish and regret mixing with his hate.

"Dimitri, I… I don't want to-"

"Why… _Why_ did you choose Edelgard, Professor?" Dimitri's voice breaks at the same time Byleth's heart does - even now, even here, he still calls him Professor. "Why did you choose to walk this savage, bloody path?"

Byleth doesn’t want this. He never wanted this, never wanted to lose five years of his life and theirs to an unfathomable void, never wanted the blood of the students he never got to see grow up to one day stain his sword, never wanted to choose sides in a war he'd been dragged into, never wanted to be here, faced with the looming inevitability of killing someone he, at one point and even now, cared for.

This is not the future he'd hoped for when he fell into these people's lives all those years ago (yesterday, it often feels like), and those feelings crash on top of him all at once, paralyzing him in place, and Byleth doesn't know what to do.

Dimitri's gaze hardens. "I cannot shake this feeling of regret... Regret that I must kill you now."

Dimitri lunges. The lance barely grazes Byleth's side as he jumps out of the way, and instinct takes over as he follows through, lashing the Sword of the Creator out like a whip, slashing Dimitri twice. The king stumbles, and Byleth wastes no time, not allowing his emotions time to process as he takes his sword and runs Dimitri through.

The gutteral sound that leaves Dimitri's mouth sends a shockwave of nauseating panic through Byleth's entire body, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

Time stops.

When he opens his eyes again, Dimitri is gone, the sword is gone, the rain, the fighting, the battlefield, all of it. Everything is gone, replaced with nothing but a familiar black void.

With nothing left, Byleth's emotions finally consume him, and he collapses. For the second time in his life, Byleth cries.

"I never thought I would bear witness to a scene such as this again."

Byleth freezes. He looks up, and finds Sothis kneeling before him, a soft, sad smile on her face.

"You triggered the power I granted you," she continues, and reaches out, grazing her hand against Byleth's cheek. He leans into her touch, his tears still not subsiding. "Yet, you have not used it. You know you can not stay in this moment forever."

The sob Byleth lets out is deep, wheezing. "I… I don't… I want to go back," he cries, shuddering with his grief. "I don't want this anymore, I never wanted this."

Sothis tilts her head, and her expression is sorrowful as she gently lifts Byleth's head, futilely wiping away his still flowing tears.

"I am proud of how well you have done, even if this path was not wholly of your choosing." She swallows hard, as if holding back her own flood of emotion. "However, this is still the path you have found yourself on. There is no doubling back more than the small amount my power has allowed. Not in this life."

Byleth sinks, and Sothis' arms are suddenly around him, holding him. She presses his head to her shoulder, caressing his hair, calming him like a child.

"You may go back within this fight, as has always been the case. To the beginning if you so wish. But I ask that you consider this seriously: Will it change anything? Will changing the minutiae of this battle bring you any more peace?"

He hears her.

He considers it.

And when he finds his answer, a new sense of grief overtakes him. He wraps his arms around her and sobs into her shoulder, as emotive as he's ever been in his life.

"It is not fair, is it? This path you are on. And yet, it has allowed me to see you once more." Sothis' embrace tightens, and a few tears trickle down her cheeks. "I can only be grateful for that."

They stay there for what very well could have been an eternity. And then, as Sothis relinquishes her grasp on him, Byleth closes his eyes with intent, the last thing in his mind a flash of her melancholic smile.

When he opens them again, the rain, the dwindling sounds of battle, and the field they've chosen to fight upon have returned. Dimitri's body is no longer strung up on Byleth's sword, now fallen to the cold, wet stones beneath them. No sobs come this time as Byleth stands, gaze transfixed on the stillness of Dimitri.

He looks over his shoulder. The battle is over, and his students are quickly coming to meet him; he sees Edelgard, the bright red of her outfit standing out so stark in the night, axe still prepared to fight. For a moment Dimitri's last words echo in his mind.

_Why did you choose Edelgard?_

He has no answer, he realizes. An idle decision made in the moment, not much thought or consideration for how it could or would affect all of their futures. Not that anyone could have predicted _this._

His gaze falls back to Dimitri, and he's grateful that a broken heart can not break again.

Byleth is also grateful he can't go back. Grateful he didn't know that this is where his choice all those years ago would eventually take him. He tries to imagine another path, one that leads to Edelgard - his precious student, his Emperor, his El - in Dimitri's place, and the pain in his chest does not lessen. That cruel, sadistic choice is not one he’s sure he could have made, knowing that this is where he and all of those bright, wonderful students would one day end up.

“Professor!”

El’s voice hits him over the pound of the steadily dissipating rain. She’s at his side in an instant, and when he looks to her he finds her eyes locked on Dimitri. A familiar expression crosses her face, a conflict of pain and anger and victory, and Byleth reaches over, gently grasping her hand in his. She squeezes back, and despite the misery cocktail of heartache and grief for everything that could have been but wasn’t, he knows.

This may not have been the “right” choice, but it is _his_ , and that’s going to have to be enough.


End file.
